AUSTIN, Texas—A national award recognizing excellence and innovation in distance learning at the college level has been awarded to the Distance Education Center, a unit of The University of Texas at Austin’s Division of Continuing and Extended Education.
The center’s online distance education course HIS315L (United States History, 1865-Present) won the University Continuing Education Association’s (UCEA) 2003 Distance Learning College Course Award.
Susan Toalson, director of the Distance Education Center (DEC), and Dean Tom Hatfield, dean of continuing and extended education, will accept the award in March at UCEA’s national conference.
“The peer recognition of our success in both developing and administering distance education is particularly rewarding,” Toalson said. “It means both our pedagogical and technological efforts are coming to fruition. The ultimate outcome of exemplary distance learning is being realized and our learners are the true winners.”
HIS 315L is designed specifically for an on-line environment. It enables students to become active participants in the learning process. By asking students to think from the perspectives of historical actors in given scenarios, the course asks them to think not only critically, but also creatively. Lewis L. Gould, the Eugene C. Barker Centennial Professor Emeritus in American History at The University of Texas at Austin, wrote the course and DEC’s Kimberly J. Morse, Ph.D., designed the course. The course is delivered to students and managed online using the Distance Education Center’s Speedway Course Management delivery platform.
Founded in 1915, UCEA is among the oldest national college and university associations in the United States. To learn more about the Distance Education Center at The University of Texas at Austin, please visit the DEC Web site.
For more information contact: Nancy S. Pettit, Distance Education Center, 512-471-9260, or Robert D.Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.
